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Re: Preston's paper on Lewis & Clark's Navigation
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2003 Jun 7, 22:31 EDT
From: Bruce Stark
Date: 2003 Jun 7, 22:31 EDT
Fred, Unfortunately I haven't gotten back to Lewis and Clark this year, but keep hoping to. As to the latitude errors: 5' my elbow! After the Mandan Villages it was more like half a degree! We discussed this on the list before you joined. Last August I tried to show why the smaller errors were not surprising, and gave a definite reason for that huge error. That post, which included the numbers from the Journals, is at: http://www.i-DEADLINK-com/lists/navigation/0208/0004.html Gary Moulton's The Definitive Journals of Lewis and Clark is the place to get any data you want. It's all there, and it's in paperback now. Preston was trying to understand the nautical astronomy of that era in terms of twentieth century celestial. Still, it's a valuable contribution. We discussed his paper on the list some time back. My post is at: http://www.i-DEADLINK-com/lists/navigation/0207/0020.html Bruce
